Vettel takes record breaking 15th pole

F1 Grand Prix, GP Brazil, Autódromo José Carlos Pace, Interlagos

Sebastian Vettel appeared unbeatable yet again in qualifying, as he topped his teammate to pole by 0.181s. Behind the Red Bull front row, Jenson Button will start from 3rd, aside of his teammate Lewis Hamilton in 4th place. This pole breaks Nigel Mansell's 14 poles a season.

With rain threatening to come into the session, 23 out of 24 cars are on the track in the first 2 minutes. Felipe Massa is waiting a little bit longer, but not by a big margin. During the 10 minutes ahead of Q1, humidity rose from 60 to 66%.

Jarno Trulli is the first man to set a laptime, ahead of his teammate Kovalainen and Buemi. Everyone appears to be on the medium tyre at this point in qualifying.

With the track extremely busy, several drivers see their first laps blocked by traffic. Nico Rosberg for example set a first laptime slower than any other car.

9 minutes into the session, Button sets the fastest time, ahead of Webber, Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso and Sutil. Rosberg moved up to 7th, Schumacher 8th. By this time several drivers of the slower end of the field have already changed to the soft tyres to put another lap in.

Jarno Trulli for instance tried to improve but didn't get a further than 19th, still behind both Williams cars. Another lap later though, Trulli found a few tenths on the same tyres and moved up to 17th place. Rain at this moment would be great for the Italian.

3 minutes from the end of Q1, only Button, Webber and Vettel appear to be certain of a place in Q2. Sutil however moved up into P3 with Di Resta in P5 on the softer tyres.

As Hamilton completed another lap to move into P2, Felipe Massa pitted immediately to save his option tyres as he seemed confident enough to move through to Q2.

At the chequered flag, the Lotus cars fought a battle in between them, resulting in Kovalainen being faster than Trulli. Out are therefore Maldonado, Kovalainan, Trulli, Liuzzi, Ricciardo, D'Ambrosio and Glock.

Contrary to Maldonado, Barrichello posted a great lap and in fact was fastest in the final sector. Timo Glock on the other hand will start from the back of the grid, claiming he hit traffic on his ideal lap.

With the threat of rain ever increasing, the queue is quite impressive at the start of Q2, and everybody is out on track by the time first man on track, Adrian Sutil, starts his flying lap.

When everybody completed their first flying laps of Q2, Vettel is on top, ahead of Rosberg, Webber, Hamilton, Button, Alonso, Sutil, Massa, Senna and Di Resta.

Everybody down on Alonso then goes out for another attempt. Massa immediately ruins his first lap after taking too much kerb through turn 2, while Sebastien Buemi complains of a loss of power as he rejoins the pitlane without improving.

In fact from the final attempts, only Michael Schumacher managed to improve to P10, knocking out Di Resta. Along with him are eliminated: Barrichello, Alguersuari, Buemi, Petrov, Kobayashi and Pérez.

By the start of Q3, the threat of rain has faded away, so not many eager to go out early in Q3. Nico Rosberg however is and gets out as soon as the light goes green.

Rosberg puts in a banker before going all out on his second lap. Lewis Hamilton appears to go for the same strategy, while Sebastian Vettel puts in a flying lap immediately after coming out on track. His 1:12.268 in fact is 3 tenths quicker than Webber, Button is third and Alonso 4th. Hamilton is 5th after his first attempt with Rosberg behind him in 6th.

Adrian Sutil set a laptime with 4 minutes left in the session, making sure he didn't get any traffic on his attempt. He is however slowest of the of cars that set a lap.

The second attempts bring no real surprises. Most top drivers are improving, but still Vettel stays ahead with another impressive lap. This gets him a record breaking 15th pole position this season.